How are you doing?
It could be better. I woke up with a cold, but besides that I am feeling okay.

The previous albums ‘Abyss’ and ‘Apex’ appeared to be your breakthrough albums. How did you slowly but surely experience that you became more popular?
It did not feel like there was this moment or accession when all of a sudden more people were listening to us. It was very gradual and more and more people started to discover us and say: ‘Oh I have found your album ‘Apex’’ or ‘I found ‘Abyss’ … I cannot believe that I haven’t heard from you before.’ There were a lot of messages like that coming in, so we were just thinking: ‘oh nice, a new fan’, that is always exciting. We play shows in bigger and bigger venues. We started to sell venues out. It was just kind of this day by day process and that was really nice actually. It has been awesome to see the growth and seeing more and more people enjoying the records and share it on social media and these kinds of things. It has been great.

You decided to write another concept album and you have chosen for AI. How did you come to that decision of choosing AI?
It was about my love for science fiction. I have always been a huge film fan and of comic books and video games. Those things have science fiction stories to tell and I know that the story of AI, becoming smart and conscious and turning against humanity is not a new one, but I just wanted to take that idea and put my own stamp on it. I am inspired by my favourite movies – these are ‘Aliens’, ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Prometheus’. Aliens are always portrayed as these beings in the underground. Is it programmed that way and are they acting for our best interest? Especially David from my favourite series, his motivations are extremely interesting. He is kind of almost uncaring in his curiosity and doesn’t care what happens to humans really. I thought this was really interesting. I wanted to tell my own android story. Everything that we know about AI today, Chat GPT and so on, it didn’t even exist when I started writing. We started working on this album when I wrote the story. It was all classic science fiction films and comic books influenced.

AI goes faster and faster these days. If it is in the hands of a good man, it is okay, but what will happen when it comes in the hands of the bad guys?
Exactly, but that is the exact clarification that needs to be made, that AI in itself, isn’t the issue. It is AI in the hands of humanity that is the terrifying thing, because AI will not do anything itself. It is trained. It is moulded into the way that it is or the way that it works by us. So I am not saying that AI doesn’t cause risks – of course it does – but it is the implementation of the humans behind it that is the risky part. If people are worried for their jobs, don’t blame AI, blame the corporations that are choosing the computers first and the people will be unemployed. There needs to be a discussion about more than one thing at some point.

What do you think of AI’s influence at schools, when young people do not learn to think for themselves anymore, because it is easier using AI’s programmed stuff?
That is so true. Think about a medical student for example, doing all those files with AI. Do you want to see that doctor? I am sure it is going to absorb intuition and a part of learning is kind of summarizing, what you have learned in your test, in your thesis or whatever. Young people do not do that anymore. I cannot even imagine what their spelling is going to be like. It is already going backwards for a decade.

On the record there should also be a kind of social commentary on the social media. What do you like on social media and whet is not that good in your opinion?
Yes, it is one of the underlying themes on the album, because Phantoma, when the story begins, she is AI that runs a computer in a warehouse. Basically what she does, is that she keeps the aeons where the humans live, stocked with everything what they ever need and so she has to be able to anticipate things before they are required. She is very good at it. She watches humans from afar by the computer and she has learned to love them, because of what they post on their social media account and what they share with the world. Travelling is impossible, because you cannot leave your bio. So they just kind of see the world by their metaverse and this is all what she is exposed to. She thinks that humans are cultured and kind and fascinating, but when she meets them in person, she realized that it is just not the truth. A lot of what is posted is not real and that is my opinion on social media in general: everyone just posts the good parts. It is not a true reflection of what is going on in their lives or what is going on in life in general. I just see all these young people, that are inspired by all these Influencers. It is not about just posting a cool photo every day, there is so much that goes into building this atmosphere of perfection around you. I don’t think this is what you think it is and also when you see what other people have, they post it on the Internet so quickly and it makes those young people jealous or envious. They think that they are not successful until they can live in a luxury house in LA. This is not what life is! When they don’t reach that, they blame themselves. So we have huge issues with self-esteem and confidence and being able to interact in a real world, it is just slowly been torn away from them and I am just not a fan. When I am on social media, I try to be as real as possible. I am not going to put up make-up because when you meet me in person, that is not who I am and that is not what I am going to be. I am not going to pretend something that I am not. I just feel that I am at a point of: why do we hide behind these fake personas? It is causing damage.

I have heard that you have a baby daughter now… congratulations!
Thank you.

If you reflect all this on the world of your baby, there will be a whole new world by the time she gets older…
You cannot help it. Becoming a mother or a father, it changes things. I am already worried that she will spend too much time on Instagram and see things that aren’t real. There is not so much you can do though, you cannot protect them from everything.

Indeed, they have to go through every segment of life themselves. But isn’t it difficult to combine it with the band?
Oh yes. We are learning slowly day by day, how to make it work. We are figuring out how to tour and everything. It is tough. Things have definitely changed and we cannot just go on the road forever and ever, just like we used to do before. We are going to do shorter tours and more often and trying to make things work as best as we can.